In the retail industry, the largest expenditures are typically the cost of the goods sold followed closely by the cost of labor expended. With particular regard to the retail grocery or supermarket industry, the impetus to reduce labor costs has focused on reducing or eliminating the amount of time required to handle and/or process the items or goods to be purchased by a customer. To this end, there have been a number of self-service checkout terminal concepts developed which attempt to substantially eliminate the need for a checkout clerk.
A self-service checkout terminal is a system which is operated by a customer without the aid of a checkout clerk. In such a system, the customer scans individual items for purchase across a scanner and then places the scanned item into a grocery bag, if desired. The customer then pays for his or her purchase either at the self-service checkout terminal if so equipped, or at a central payment area such as a supervisor or payment terminal which is staffed by a store employee. Thus, a self-service checkout terminal permits a customer to select, itemize, and in some cases pay for his or her items for purchase without the assistance of the retailer's personnel.
However, in certain circumstances it is necessary for retail personnel to intervene in order to complete the customer's transaction during operation of the self-service checkout terminal. Such intervention is typically performed by a store employee such as a retail clerk or a customer service manager. Examples of situations which require intervention by the retail clerk or customer service manager include (1) collection of coupons, (2) acceptance of tendered checks, (3) handling of credit card verification exceptions, (4) itemization of items that the customer is unable to scan or otherwise enter, and (5) itemization of difficult items such as the identification of exotic produce and the like.
In order to provide for such intervention, self-service checkout terminals have heretofore been designed to include a summoning device such as a tri-colored signal lamp which is utilized to notify or otherwise summon a retail clerk or customer service manager when it is necessary for a store employee to intervene in the customer's checkout transaction. Thereafter, a store employee approaches the self-service checkout terminal so as to respond to the customer's intervention request. This manner of providing intervention undesirably requires the store employee to move from terminal to terminal thereby potentially causing undesirable customer delays if several terminals require intervention within the same general time period.
Another approach which has been taken to providing such intervention is to utilize a store employee operating a remote terminal to provide the necessary intervention into the customer's transaction. In such a configuration, the store employee operating the remote terminal may, for example, approve credit and check payment transactions, enter the product identification code associated with an unscannable item, or identify an exotic produce item via use of a video system. However, use of remote terminals in the manner described above has a number of drawbacks associated therewith. For example, retail checkout systems which have heretofore been designed undesirably dedicate a single remote terminal to a fixed, predetermined number of self-service checkout terminals. For instance, as shown in FIG. 8, a first remote terminal 110 is dedicated to servicing a first pair of self-service checkout terminals 112, 114, whereas a second remote terminal 210 is dedicated to servicing a second pair of self-service checkout terminals 212, 214. It should be appreciated that in regard to self-service retail checkout systems which have heretofore been designed, the remote terminal 110 could not be utilized to monitor the self-service checkout terminals 212, 214, whereas similarly, the remote monitoring station 210 could not be utilized to monitor the self-service checkout terminals 112, 114. Hence, assuming a given remote terminal is dedicated to a particular pair of self-service checkout terminals, a retail checkout system having eight self-service checkout terminals would be required to have four remote terminals. Moreover, if either one of a given pair of self-service checkout terminals (e.g. the self-service checkout terminal 114) is operational, the remote terminal associated therewith (e.g. the remote terminal 110) must be staffed by a store employee even if the other self-service checkout terminal of the pair (e.g. the self-service checkout terminal 112) is not operational thereby potentially increasing labor costs associated with the retailer's operation.
What is needed therefore is a retail system which overcomes one or more of the above-mentioned drawbacks. What is particularly needed is a method and apparatus for operating a retail system which provides flexibility in regard to the number and location of the self-service checkout terminals which are monitored by a single remote terminal.